


The Tape

by horsechiffon



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Anime physics, Canon Typical Violence, Extremely obvious, Happy Pride, I killed koala off screen because I don't care about him, It's also Killua/Gon but not like, M/M, Post-Chimera Ant Arc, SRS but with nen, Surgery stuff, Trans Male Character, Transman scoping a D, mostly cuz he's ugly, trans lyfe, where gon came from, yet - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-09
Updated: 2019-06-16
Packaged: 2020-04-23 08:58:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 7,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19147768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/horsechiffon/pseuds/horsechiffon
Summary: Kite and Ging get to talking one evening. Kite learns a new depth of Ging's bastardry. About Gon's origins. M for language and themes but they'll probably boink later and I'll have to bump the rating. This fic goes into specifics (sorta) of sex reassignment surgery and Kite learning to be comfortable in his new body.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I read all the other fics on here and I love Kite so I needed more, so I made more. There will be a lot more of this.

“Hey Kite,” Ging started as he turned the peppers over the fire.

“Master?” Kite said in response as he poured out a cup of tea for each of them. Ging glanced at the mugs, pouring liquor into each.

“Do you think Gon ever listened to the end of my tape, about who his mother is?”

Kite sighed, adding some sugar to his. It wasn’t that he was particularly adverse to strong or bitter foods, but Ging had a heavy hand. He took up his cup. “No, he would have acted differently towards me if he had.”

Kite sipped his concoction with a bit of a grimace. Ging could definitely afford better liquor.

“Then I guess I don’t have to tell him, right?”

“That’s sort of an irresponsible approach to it, don’t you think?” Kite replied.

Ging sipped his liquor, but it was the objections on his tongue that made him pout. “I gave him the opportunity…”

“When he was twelve,” Kite cut in impatiently. He thought the world of Ging, and owed him his life, but Ging was also definitely fooling himself.

“Man…” Ging pulled off his hat and rubbed his scalp.

“Dont let the fish burn,” Kite chided lightly.

Ging shot him a glare, turning the peppers over again and bothering the grilling fish. “How’m I supposed to tell Gon that anyway?”

“What, you think he’ll go tell press?” Kite asked, already feeling the stupid amount of rum Ging had added

“No! No… Nothing like that. He’s a good kid…” Ging clicked his tongue in irritation. And then remembered himself. He looked over to Kite. “Should you be drinking that?”

Kite, red haired and about a foot shorter than he was last year, shrugged. “You already poured it. And I’m sure my nen can handle it,” he replied, his voice muffled by the cup.

“I don’t know, what’s he even gonna do with that sort of information?” Ging hunched his shoulders and furrowed his brow.

“That’s sort of a stupid approach for you, isn’t it? You love to know things for their own sake. We all do, as Hunters.” Kite was taller than he was when had seen Gon last, at least. If he had to guess, he figured that he’d be clocked at about sixteen physically now. He was surely lankier than the girl would have been, his own nen influencing his growth and features. He would have released Koala from his service if he hadn't already dispatched of Koala half a year prior. It left a sour taste in his mouth, but some people never changed, even after giving long-winded repentances. 

“So what do you want out of it, huh?” Ging challenged.

Kite’s eyebrows lifted towards his messy bangs. “Absolutely nothing. You’re the one that started this.”

Ging let out a sigh, fiddling with their dinner in silence for a moment. “Kite… Look, it’s not like I’m pitying you…”

“I’m aware that you’re incapable, go on.”

That seemed to irritate Ging, but he wanted to finish his point. “But! You’re still in a pretty sorry state.”

Kite took in a long, steady breath. “I knew I would outlive you before, now I’m just sure of it. I don’t think you have anything to feel sorry about.”

“You’ve got a little, fuckin’, rat’s vagina!” he blurted out. Kite laughed into his cup.

“It’s not ideal,” he started. “I think I’m a mouse, though.”

“Whatever!” Ging squawked. 

“It beats being dead. I’m working on it,” he said with a shrug. “I take my hormones. When I’m not so busy I’ll deal with the breasts.” As it was he was unbound and unfettered by a bra, hanging loose in his usual white turtleneck.

“Mmgh, you make it seem so easy,” Ging replied with a glare.

“I can beat anyone who doesn’t take me seriously. I imagine it’s a little more upsetting to have to grow up like this, and without nen,” he replied with a shrug.

Ging let out a long breath. He pulled the food from the fire and set it aside. He dropped his ass to a stump and his head to a hand. “I just don’t want Gon to get any weird ideas and think of me as a mother.”

“I’m certain that unless you tell him, he won’t consider it,” Kite said flatly. “He’s not a stupid kid, but you’ve covered your tracks. Does anyone even know that about you?”

“Mito,” he said simply. “Might remember. But I’m older than her. She might not. Gran’s barely there. There’s not a scrap of evidence left on this planet otherwise. I’ve seen to it,” he said with a shrug, like it was nothing.

“So it’s up to you,” Kite replied.

“Yeah, sure, whatever. But aren’t you pissed that you can’t tell him that you’re his father?” Ging pressed, chugging his unpleasant excuse for a cocktail.

“I’d prefer he knew,” he began, “But I’m not sure he would gain anything from it. I’ve barely been a father to him, even less than you have.”

“… I have something to tell you too, Kite,” Ging said, chewing his lip.

“…What.”

“Well, I shouldn’t have been able to get pregnant. I kinda got myself fixed years ago, right? It’s one of the first things I did with my money.”

Kite stared at him. “Where are you going with this, Ging?”

“Okay, so. In Greed Island we made a card that can induce pregnancy regardless of physical sex.”

“Great. Why?”

“Why!? I don’t know! It seemed funny at the time—“

“Oh my god, Ging. Is Gon not my son?”

“I’m fairly certain he’s a nen clone.”

They stared at each other, Kite reaching over for Ging’s bottle of liquor. “What the fuck, Ging.” Kite shook his head, irately repositioning his hat. He couldn’t even bother to call him master for that.

“Don’t get mad!”

“You’ve been lying to me for fifteen years.”

“Yeah? And? It’s not like you were the model dad, right? So what, you punched him in the face and then got eaten by some ants?”

“I never said I got eaten.” Kite took a swig. “Still more than you did, by a lot. Even just by timeframe.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Fine. I see how this is gonna be,” Ging groused, pulling his hat down over his eyes. “I built him a whole island...” he mumbled.

“You started it,” Kite offered, staring at him with his unfamiliar face. “Yes, and it’s very impressive. But you lost a custody battle just by not showing... What could have been so important?”

“I didn’t know it was happening!” Ging shot back.

“They sent mail to the hunter association, and my house for some reason.”

“I have your house listed as my address.”

“Of course. Anyway, I don’t think it would be so bad if you told Gon about it. He’s a pretty open-minded kid. He keeps Killua around, after all.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?!”

“Killua is Gon’s boyfriend.”

“What! What?! When did this happen?”

“It could have happened literally at any time, you know,” Kite said as he sipped the cheap rum. “You weren’t around.”

Ging snatched the liquor bottle from Kite. “You’ve got awfully loose lips with a little alcohol in you, don’tcha?”

“Am I lying?”

Ging flushed. “Are you sure?”

“… Yeah. I’m sure,” Kite’s eyes flicked over Ging. “I’m not going to make you tell him. But I won’t lie if he asks.” Something hit Kite. “What did you put on that tape? Gon told me that you had sent him to Greed Island before sending him to me to train to find you.”

“… Hmm.”

“Ging.” 

“So… I sort of made it so that Gon had to use Magnetic Force to find me.”

Kite bunched his eyebrows. “You know I don’t know anything about your game, except that you apparently made a pregnancy card.” That wasn't entirely true, Gon had mentioned quite a bit, but he wasn't about to make this easier on him.

“Okay, okay. So. Magnetic Force teleports a single user and Accompany teleports multiple people.”

“You wanted him to meet you alone,” Kite could already feel a headache brewing, and he wasn’t sure if it was Ging or the shitty booze. “Why?”

“Well! He should have come to see me alone!”

Kite stood with such speed and ferocity that it actually caught Ging off guard as he walloped him hard in the face.

“I should have known everything was your fault, and on a whim at that! If you hadn’t sent Gon to me, I wouldn’t have fallen behind on my mission, and I would still have my body! Hundreds of lives could have been spared!” Kite crouched over Ging, his hair falling over his shoulders, and a feral anger in his eyes. “All because you didn’t want Gon to bring a friend, when that’s the reason you left in the first place. You, of all people, treasure your friends!”

Ging caught his next fist. “Alright, I deserved that…”

“You deserve more!” he roared. He let out a long, angry breath as he stood up and turned as he smelled the food start to smoke. “Shit,” he pulled them from the fire, slightly charred. “There’s a bounty for your hands. I have half a mind…”

“Mm, yeah. I saw that bounty. It was for so much I almost considered selling them myself.”

Kite stared into his dinner, thinking.

Ging took his own, chewing nervously. He’d really stepped in it this tume, huh. “Hey, I’m sorry…”

Kite’s eyes snapped up. “For what, exactly?”

Jesus, did he really have to be so menacing all the time? It didn’t help that rebirth as a chimera ant had made him much, much more powerful. “For lying to Gon. But you should be thanking me for turning you into an ant, then.”

Ging was already several feet in the air by the time he heard the whip crack of his own body barreling and the flash of red hair. He grabbed a tree limb to slow himself, instead just stripping it of all of its branches. He was luckier, sort of, when he landed his feet on a younger tree’s trunk. It bent low with such force that it sounded like a canon fire when it whipped back and drove him waist high into the dirt.

Seconds later, Kite pulled him out by the seat of his pants and dropped him on the ground.

He threw Ging’s phone at his chest.

“Wire me a hundred billion.”

Ging groaned, dragging his phone up to his face to complete the transaction.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kite is still angry.

Kite was quite a bit richer than he was earlier yesterday, but he still felt that he was angrier than he was rich.

Which was saying something now that Ging was sweating over his account. Served him right for throwing his money around as he did anyway.

“You happy now?” Ging asked, pressing a cold beer to his swollen jaw.

“No,” Kite said with his shoulders hunched, and tail swishing irately. “Give me your surgeon’s information.”

Ging breathed in sharply. “Why?”

“Why? For surgery, duh.”

“There’s a lot of great surgeons out there, I don’t know if you’ve looked into it yet...”

“Sort of. But I figured that you would have picked the best, and I’m going to ask him to give me a bigger dick than you have.”

“That’s a little low for you. Also my doctor is a woman.”

“Shut up and show me it.”

Ging sighed, knowing he was at Kite’s general mercy. He could have left if he wanted to, but he kinda still felt like making it right. “Haven’t you seen it?”

“I’ve felt it. It’s been years since I’ve looked at it properly; you’re elusive, I’m busy.”

“I get busy, too...”

“Trying to smear your entrails all over the dark continent barely counts.”

“It’s not less important than discovering new slugs.”

“My last discovery was a bird, and invertebrate studies are still important.”

“Said the ant.”

Ging doubled over in pain, the skewer from Kite’s dinner sticking out of his shin.

“Do you _want_ me to get an infection?”

“I don’t not want that. Show me your cock.”

Ging pulled the skewer out, cauterizing it with his own nen. He stood and unbuttoned his trousers, pulling the loin cloth aside. 

There was virtually no scarring, and without knowing his history no one would ever have been able to guess that it was constructed. Not that that mattered, really, but in Ging’s case it was true.

Kite was too angry to admit it, but it was a very pretty cock. Then surgeon must have been a nen master in their craft.

Kite reached out, taking it between his thumb and forefingers to inspect it. Ging’s hand came out in instinctive fear, catching Kite’s wrist.

“Calm down, I’m not going to rip it off,” Kite said dismissively.

“Look. Your aura is really fuckin’ scary right now, okay?”

Kite let out a breath, trying to calm himself. “I’d never do that to you. I’m insulted that you’d worry otherwise.”

“So you’d kill me, but you wouldn’t rip off my manhood?”

“Mhm.”

A quiet chill ran down Ging’s spine as he watched this man, half familiar in appearance, inspect him. 

“You’re getting hard,” Kite said with an air of annoyance.

“Shut up, I’m not trying to.”

Kite pinched the soft skin connecting his cock to his pubis, hard. Even the full expression of Ging’s nervous ko didn’t stop the breaking of blood vessels under Kite’s half hearted flex of his might.

Ging groaned, hands on his hips, and leaned back. “Kiiiite. Please.”

“Still mad about the people who died. Not about to suck you off. Keep it in check. Who’s your surgeon?”

“Doctor Maria Chen.”

“Great, give me her number.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gonna try to update this as much as I can tbh. Leave reviews for requests. They’ll bang at some point


	3. Righting the flesh

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kite gets his surgeries.

It was barely a week later when Kite went under the knife. 

“I can’t just move everyone’s schedules! I have a wait list, some of them have been waiting a year!”

“Move it by one day and I’ll pay for literally everyone else’s surgeries,” Kite said simply.

It barely cut into the hundred billion.

Kite’s outward transformation over the week had been... dramatic. His body, perhaps trying to resync to his nen, had grown each time he slept. Once or twice, he had showered, inspecting himself in the mirror before and after, noticing that he became more like himself each time.

His hair was still clown-fucking-red, though. And seemed like he’d gotten a haircut, but only because his legs had grown so much faster. It was like his teens all over again. He remembered how painful it was each night that summer when he had grown a literal foot. His clothes fit so poorly then, and he hid under his huge navy coat as his thin stomach and hips peeked out from his worn, white shirt. It had been a year since he met Ging.

He didn’t know when his birthday was, of course, and when asked on documents he cited the day he met Ging. Ging had supplied the documents easily. Where did these come from, he asked. I know a guy, Ging replied.

He remembered trying to slow his breathing at night, the pain becoming more prominent once he laid down after grueling training during the day. Ging was an enigma, especially during those days when he started to fall in love with him. Kite held his emotions tight to his chest. He simply did not want to ruin what he had with Ging, and what’s more, it was not appropriate to him. Master and student should stay as such.

He liked things in distinct categories, and Ging didn’t care for that. Once, high on a plant of indeterminate origin, (or at least that was his excuse) Ging had swapped the bones and specimens in Kite’s lab.

Kite had written a paper on what he thought were new findings that he hadn’t noticed before when he came back from a trip. Before he noticed one of Ging’s hairs in his lab. Yet after he had published this paper in a major journal. 

The last things Kite remembered before going under were the dotted line marker drawings on his chest. He got his IV, his medications, and then he was waking up in his private room hours later.

Ging sat on the end of Kite’s bed, holding the bag of his clothing. “You’re awake an hour after I thought you would be. Are you slipping?” 

Kite kicked at him weakly, the heavy sedation still weighing him down. Ging opened a nearby Jell-o cup, spooning some out to eat.

Kite was about to mention that those were his, when he fell back under. 

He remembered coming back to for the doctors and nurses to ask him things. He responded well and was feeling much better already.

“Hey, how long has it been?” Kite asked, noting the surprised looks on all of the personnel’s faces. He checked himself in the bathroom mirror, the door open to his suite.

Ging roused from his nap from inside the bathtub, checking the phone with a squinted eye.

“Three days, you’re apparently two months ahead of schedule,” he said simply, sinking down into the warm water.

Kite turned, looking at his healing flesh and where the tubing for the drains came out. He knew that it was absurd that he was even standing and moving so well. But he also knew it was him, and he wasn’t to be underestimated.

“Yeah, I want to go back to work,” he said, fingers traveling over his own skin. There was sensation; he’d read that it would be lessened and warned by the doctor...

“You sure? You wanna go on vacation first?”

That was tempting, but knowing Ging...

“How likely are we to die?” Kite asked, placing a foot on the counter to examine the healing handiwork.

“Permanently?”

“In general.”

“Hmmmm... Coward,” he teased, kicking his hairy legs up out of the water. He crossed his ankles, peering at Kite. “You look nice.”

Kite blushed despite himself, pulling his leg back down and shifting the various tubes and bags hanging off and out of him. “Thanks, Master.”

Ging grinned. It was the first time he’d called him that in a short while. He doubted Kite forgave him entirely but... Good enough for now.


	4. In bed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ging and Kite take a look at Kite’s body. Next chapter will be porn probably.

Ging brushed a few of Kite’s hairs out of his face, staring intently at his features. There were certainly changes from how he used to look, but he seemed to be a pleasant mixture.

Kite was never an ugly man, but his features were sharp and hawklike... And now, he had to deal with soft lips, big droopy eyes, and a soft nose... well. Sort of. 

His features had all started to accommodate his thin face. His nose seemed longer, his eyes sharper. That girl had made given him such beautiful, long eyelashes.

His skin had stayed the same, thankfully, or he really would have looked like a clown.

Kite’s eyes blinked open, catching Ging with his hand on him.

“Do you miss your face?” Ging said suddenly.

“I miss knowing what to expect when I see my reflection. I’m not vain... but I liked looking like myself.”

“Looking like yourself can get complicated, huh? I can see you looking through the face, you know,” Ging placed a thumb on Kite’s lips.

“Do you miss how I looked?”

“Haha nah, you’re way hotter now.”

Kite groused, but he couldn’t disagree. The shapely upturned lips, the freckles, the skin that actually tanned in the sun... his hair color began to grow on him, too. It was a little softer than the hair on his old body. It started to feel like his, and not like the nameless girls’.

Ging pulled away the blanket, revealing Kite’s nude form. It had been recommended to him that he give his body space to heal now that all the restricting garments, compression bandages, and scar tape was removed.

“You got a nicer cock, too,” Ging said, reaching over. “It looks like the old one but better,” he said with a chuckle.

“I still can’t believe you showed that picture of me to the surgeon.”

“It was for your own good!”

“I didn’t even know you had anything like that,” he said with a growl.

It had made poor Dr.Chen blush and stare at her shoes, and that was supposed to be hard to do. She reconstructed genitals for a living! Genitals that were top of the line of sec and pleasure: she wasn’t a shy woman.

“Couldn’t you have sent the autopsy photos from my old body?”

“God that’s dark, Kite.”

“Anyway, I would have been happy with any penis, I guess. But, um, thanks for making it familiar for me.”

“I was considering having them just ship your junk over, it’s still in decent condition apparently.”

Kite paused. “I’m... I’m okay being in this body with what it has. I’m not sure I like the implication of what has happened to it.”

“Oh, you didn’t look it over?”

“No, no. I get enough anxiety nightmares as it is. I didn’t need to fuel my subconscious with something new and horrible.”

Ging was a horrible bedroom talker. This wasn’t he direction he wanted this to go at all.

“Soooo.... you take it for a spin yet?”

Kite turned his head, looking annoyed. “You’re asking if I took my penis ‘for a spin’? I piss out of it every day.”

“Oh c’monnn you know what I’m talking about!”

Kite sighed, turning onto his side. “Not yet, to be honest. I’ve mostly been tired and busy.”

Ging squinted. “Sounds like a lie. Is it wigging you out?”

“... No. No it’s fine. I, um, tried a couple times back when my body was different, but it made me feel like a creep. Even if it was my body, it also wasn’t. I felt like a pervert.”

“Hmm, I suppose so?”

“I mean. I showered with the lights off for a year. It just seemed too inappropriate, like a betrayal of that girl’s privacy.”

Ging was really, really bad at pillow talk. 

“Hey, Kite. Knock it off with the gloom and doom. It’s more like that girl just became a parent, right? Supplied you with some genetic material. So you’re part ant queen, part this... and. Hey, whatever!”

Kite sighed. He was starting to feel some connection to his physical form ever since the surgeries. Really, ever since he killed Koala and decided to start hormone therapy.

Kite rolled his eyes, swung his long legs over the bed’s edge and approached his mirror.

“Really, I’m just glad to have an adult’s body,” he says with a flush. He had been training a lot lately, not that he was weak, but he was still out of tune with himself. He had only recently grown used to his tail. “But it’s obvious you’re trying to get me sweet on you,” he said with a laugh.

“I’m still trying to make it up to you, okay?”

And that was a lot coming from Ging. In all the years he’d known him, he never stayed in one spot for too long. To resist his wanderlust like this was wild. He had invited Kite on a dangerous vacation, but he had side-lined it until he felt confident about his nen. Though his ant body was powerful, more powerful than his human one, he had to rechannel and reroute his nen.

He had summoned crazy slots for the first time months ago to see if he could after much deliberation, but it’s script and appearance had changed. 

The bastard had white hair and a blue hat. And apparently a lot more slots to pull. When did he even do that to his Psycho Clown? He wasn’t sure, really.

“You’re trying to fuck me,” Kite said, turning towards him.

“Why can’t I do both?”

“Depends. Are you going to service me first?”

Ging fucking hated reciprocating most of the time. It was boring and usually methodical, and no one ever appreciated when he tried something new.

“Yeah. Yeah I will. C’mere.”


	5. Scavenger

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Im sorry. they were gonna fuck this chapter but then they didn't

Kite’s home was about 100 kilometers outside of yorknew, out in the countryside. He had people to tend to the premises to deal with how often he was out and about. The previous owners made their riches from oil and loved their home, but happily sold it to Kite for the price he named.

The house itself was three stories and made of handsome stone and wood. It was a sprawling Victorian style estate, purchased for the fact that the outlying lands included a delicate watershed, a forest with a type of wild fox Kite was fond of, and space for his kennels. 

Ging said that no one needed thirty dogs. Kite argued that thirty dogs was the perfect number of dogs for anyone to have.

He kept a stable, it was there when he moved in and it was an excellent way to survey his property in an environmentally friendly sort of way. He kept four horses, all of them former racehorses.

Kite had no neighbors for at least thirty minutes in any direction, and that’s how he liked it. His long driveway, paved with cobblestones, quickly alerted everyone and everything of visitors. 

Ging had a hand on either of Kite’s thighs as thirty dogs barked and howled until a staffer gave them the command to quiet.

“Oh, that must be Gon,” Kite said, sliding out from under Ging and going to his armoire.

“You didn’t tell me Gon was visiting,” Ging said quickly, rolling off the bed in a flurry to find his clothes.

“Yeah, since you’d try to dodge him. What’s wrong with you? He already finished his task.”

“I never said I’d stop trying to outrun him. Where are my pants?”

“You left them downstairs,” Kite replied as he finger combed his hair. He languidly stepped into a pair of slacks, finding a nice short-sleeved button down shirt to wear with it.

“Fuck. Fuck, fuck,” Ging peeked out of the room, planning his heist.

“Want to just borrow a pair of pants from me?”

“Ha ha, bastard,” Ging replied. “You know you’re too thin in the hips for me to do that. Not to mention your stork legs!”

“More of an eastern heron.”

Ging didn’t hear that though, because he was hustling down the hall, fully in fearful zetsu. He looked down the stairs. Thankfully the tabbard of his shirt doubled to cover him, but. Still. One of Kite’s men stood at the bottom greeting Gon... and Killua... with someone else in tow. Fuck! He was already on the stairs though, trying to make his way.

Killua’s eyes flicked towards Ging, and the look on his face showed clear contempt. For his general personhood or the fact that he was very obviously without pants... He wasn’t sure.

He didn’t have much time to think about it either, since Killua was on the landing in the blink of an eye. “I’m not letting you down there with my sister.” His aura crackled. No, he didn’t think he could beat Ging in a fight, but Alluka made him feel like he needed to try.

“Hey! Hey— I’m not looking to start anything here! I just left my pants down there, no one told me we’d have guests.”

“What kind of pervert just gets undressed wherever? I don’t believe you!”

Ging weighed his options. Try to slip by and risk exposing himself to several minors, or go back and try to find something, anything, that would fit him. “I’m not a pervert!”

That’s when Kite strolled out with his usual elegant gait, drawing everyone’s gazes. He placed a bathrobe over Ging’s shoulders. The robe draped on the floor making Ging look even smaller than he was, and hiding his satyr-hairy legs from the kids’ eyes.

“Welcome to my house,” he said, patting Killua’s shoulder and looking at Gon. “Don’t mind Ging. Let’s have tea in the parlor while he tries to remember where he undressed.”

Unable to contain himself, Gon launched himself at Kite. Now used to the boy’s exuberance, he was only slightly put off as he caught him midair, swinging him down to his feet. He knelt to give Gon a hug.

“You’ve grown, Gon.”

“Yeah, but not as much as you have!!”

They shared a laugh as Ging skulked off in a cold sweat.

“Now, who’s this charming young lady?” Kite asked gesturing to Alluka.

“That’s my sister, Alluka. And now you have Ging, of all people, walking around your house like an Alzheimers patient. What the fuck?”

“Nice to meet you, Alluka. I’m Kite. Nevermind all that…” sweat rolled down his cheek as he tried to keep his cool. God dammit Ging, even when he was trying to get the upperhand, the other man managed to make it awful for him. Kite managed to wordlessly convince Gon to let go, leading the boys downstairs. He took the trio away while Ging tried to figure out what drunk Ging did with his pants. 

“Is everyone else okay with the fact that Ging is just, naked?!” Killua objected as Kite put some Nen-soaked pressure on his shoulder, leading them all downstairs.

Alluka pointed at Ging who was trying desperately to no longer be noticed in this situation. “He’s not all the way naked!” She wore a silly grin, Kite was trying not to laugh, and Killua and Gon each looked like they wanted to die a little.

And that’s when one of the staffers handed Ging a riddle he wrote for himself concerning the location of those elusive pants.

“....Fuck.”

Back in the parlor, Kite was making up four cups of tea.

“You look great, Kite!” Gon said, looking at him with starry eyes.

“Mm, thanks. Between the medical interventions and my own nen, I seem to have come mostly into my own again.”

“Yeah! You have such pretty hair… I wish mine was more like that,” Alluka said. And then caught on. “Your Nen?” Alluka asked with some confusion. “I didn’t know it could do that.”

“Nen can do... a lot, probably more than we even understand about it.”

Alluka made a soft sound before turning quickly to Killua. “Teach me Nen, brother!!”

“Wait, wait, no! It’s too dangerous...”

“What! C’mon...” Alluka sulked, going boneless in her seat.

While they quibbled about that, Gon leaned in, speaking directly to Kite.

“You’re dating Ging, right?”

The bluntness of the assertion threw Kite. “No, no. About his pants... he just gets irresponsible when he drinks. And he drinks when he stays in one place for too long.” That grabbed Killua’s attention.

“Well, why’s he staying in one place then?” Killua chimed in, grateful for a distraction.

“And you really smell like him,” Gon said.

“And anyway, why was he in your room without pants?” Alluka added to Killua’s chagrin.

Kite hung his head. He wasn’t getting out of this unscathed. “Well... the nature of our relationship... is complicated. We aren’t dating,” Kite said with a flush. “But it isn’t any of you kids’ business... I just finished with my surgeries, and he was looking after me.”

There was a glimmer of something under that, a look Kite failed to hold back. Gon and Killua looked at each other with a knowing look, and back at Kite.

“But you have staff,” Killua offered.

“... Was Ging really taking care of you?” Gon sounded skeptical. Of course he loved his father and looked up to him, but he knew him better than that.

“In his own way,” Kite admitted. He cleared his throat, tail swishing unconsciously. “There was a reason I brought you here, Gon. I have something for you, I figure you might make use of it now that you can’t take any Hunter jobs.”

Gon perked up, blinking owlishly at Kite. “Huh? What?”

“Give me your account number, I have some early inheritance for you,” he said, sipping his tea as he pulled his phone out of his pocket.

“Oh, um,” Gon retrieved his phone and opened his app to recite the numbers back to Kite. 

“Alright, there,” he said, clicking send.

Gon’s phone buzzed and Gon made such a noise that Killua and Alluka looked over too.

“Is this really okay?!” Gon asked, standing suddenly.

“Of course it is. It’s only right all considering,” Kite said coolly.

“I don’t even know what to do with it all...”

“Well. Ideally, you can just use it as it comes up. It should be difficult to actually spend it all down. Buy a house, travel, hire some hunters to escort you around.”

Gon’s eyes watered at that. “Thank you, Kite!” He leapt across the coffee table to attach himself to Kite.

“Why’d you call it inheritance?” Killua asked.

“Well... I took the money from Ging, but he owed me. And more importantly, he owed you,” Kite placed his hands on Gon’s shoulders, patting him awkwardly.

Which was when Ging stepped in, finally with pants, looking harried.

“Where were they?” Kite asked, looking a little embarassed that this entire teenager was still on him.

Ging narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “What did you just tell Gon? Why is he hugging you?”

Killua cut off Gon from answering. This definitely wasn’t about the money, and there was something more interesting and suspicious going on. Ging would connect the dots easily if it was about that. “What do you think he told him?”

“I wasn’t talkin’ to you, brat!” Ging yelled with a stamp of his foot.

“Don’t be mean to my brother!” Alluka snapped with a stomp back at him.

“Now now, children,” Kite said with gentle ‘calm down’ motions of his hands.

“He’s acting more suspicious than normal, don’t you think, Gon?" Killua said, turning to him.

“I’m suspicious? You all just showed up! You could have called me, Gon!”

“I guess… But Kite didn’t say you were here,” Gon finally slid off of Kite, placing his hands on his knees. “So… How long have you been seeing Kite?”

Ging cocked his head. “What do you mean? We met forever ago.”

“No… I mean. Really seeing him, dating.”

“We ain’t dating!” Ging said with a dramatic hand gesture.

“Man… What an obvious lie. You might be a weirdo, but no one walks around another guy’s house without his pants like that unless he’s involved. Stuuupid!”

“Is this why you left my birth mom?” Gon's expression changed, he was clearly trying to piece it together.

Kite and Ging did not hide their reactions well. Kite raised his eyebrows high and silently looked to Ging.

“Well?” Kite prompted.

“Shaddup! It’s no one’s business but my own. I gave you the chance to hear it on the tape I gave you, but you chickened out, didn’t you?” Ging pointed at Gon with his hand close to his chest.

“I ddin’t think it would erase itself like that! Mito’s my mom and all, and I didn’t even ask who my mom is, but why are you acting so weird about it?!”

Ging panicked. “Kite’s your mom.”

“I am not your mom. Ging, we weren’t even talking about that. I gave Gon some money to help him along.”

“Well why didn’t you say so!”

Killua held out his hand in a stop motion to Ging. 

“We’re not idiots, Ging. Gon found you fair and square. We beat your unbeatable game. We saved the world. Be honest with us,” he jabbed his finger in the air at Ging with each strike.

Ging stood up straight and pinched his shoulders. “No. I’ll tell Gon, maybe, but only if we’re alone.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kite takes the children for a horse ride.

The rest of the days passed peacefully enough. Kite showed them around his property on horseback, introduced them to his dogs to Gon and Alluka’s delight and Killua’s chagrin, all while Ging was nowhere to be seen.

“Do you think he left?” Gon asked, wide eyed and innocently in spite of all that had happened.

“No… He’s still here. I can sense him every few hours.”

“Hey, old man, why are you being so dodgy about this? You know what Ging was gonna say, right? And he pissed you off, so why not just say?” Killua added.

Kite let out a breath. He wasn’t used to people being so confrontational towards him quite like this. “It’s… I don’t know. It’s a cop out if I tell you and he doesn’t.”

“Mr.Kite… You really care for Ging, right?” came Alluka’s voice.

Kite blushed, pulling the brim of his hat down. “Yeah. I do.” It was pointless to deny it.

“Then… Is he being mean to you?” Alluka asked _very_ passionately.

Kite was thrown off guard entirely by that. I mean. He was, because he was always fairly inconsiderate towards him. “Not more than usual…”

“You shouldn’t have to deal with that!” Killua said, suddenly more annoyed than he was about it all.

“It’s complicated,” Kite said.

“You’ve said that,” Gon replied. “But… It still feels unfair, right?”

Kite sighed. They were good kids, and insightful enough, too. “I have something to tell you, Gon, but…” he considered placing the same restriction on him. That he would only say it alone. But. Even if he did it would blow up Ging’s thing. God DAMN it, Ging! “Nevermind. No buts… You’ve waited long enough to hear about your mother.”

“Um…” Gon looked at the moving ground. “Mito is my mother… I don’t really need to know any of that. It’s not that big of a deal to me.”

Kite closed his eyes for a moment, thinking. When he reopened them he spoke,”I think it’s important that you know.” But part of him knew that he only wanted Gon to know to understand his pain. No one else would care, really. “Your birth was unusual.”

That definitely caught the attention of the three teens. 

“Let’s stop here,” Kite said, pulling the reigns to slow his horse. He hopped off, just standing among the trees. The others were able to pull off and dismount, Alluka needed a little assistence. 

“Hm, Ging’s here,” he said after a moment. A dramatic sigh came from the trees. Ging dropped down and approached with a saunter. A drunken saunter.

“Fine! I’ll say it. I’ll say it. Only ‘cause I don’t want you to tell it wrong,” he makes a click with his tongue as he sits down on a felled tree trunk. Ging took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. “There’s no mother. I used the pregnancy card, so. You’re my clone, basically.”

Kite folded his arms. There was more to it, and he wished he’d say it, only out of his own selfishness. But Ging was more selfish, wasn’t he? Kite could barely hide how ruffled he was, and no one else could ignore it either by the spike of Kite’s aura.

Ging sat up a bit straighter. “And, um. Kite thought he was involved with it. The pregnancy. I was using nen, and I didn’t explain it properly… So. He thought he was a father, of sorts…”

Alluka was simply wide-eyed, Killua’s jaw hung open, and Gon seemed like he was having some sort of mix between a crisis and a “but of course!” realization. Maybe his mind was just snapping. 

It wasn’t the entire truth, but he understood, and it was true enough for Kite.

“He didn’t even tell _me_ this until a couple months ago.”

“…Gross,” KIllua said, now staring at the leaves on the ground.

“H-hey! You’re talking about my… parents… here…” Gon said weakly. Yeah, this was not what he was expecting to hear. “So… Um. I’m… a clone of you, Ging. What does that mean for me?”

“Huh? I don’t know. I’ve never made a nen clone before! Not like, a real one made of flesh and blood and all that… You’re not entirely a perfect clone either, I think. Rather, you’re split off from my soul and body, not just a piece of it. You’re a different nen type user, for one.”

Kite figured the “for two” would not be forthcoming. It didn’t matter anyway. Ging was a man as much as Gon was, Gon just had the luck to be born with all the parts he wanted. Well, hopefully. It wouldn’t do to worry about that.

Gon looked to Kite. “So… You thought of me as your son?”

Kite shifted uncomfortably. “Yeah… In a way. I didn’t really do much for you since I was so absorbed in my own training…” Kite did feel some guilt over that. Part of him feared trying to be a parent anyway. He was raised by the streets, and feared his own violence in the presence of a child. He wasn’t sure he would be a good parent, and was quietly happy that Ging had even lost custody. “I think you were better off without me.”

Gon bristled, standing suddenly, alarming everyone. “Don’t say that! I love Mito, and Mito was amazing… And I really appreciate how you guys helped me be a hunter… But since I don’t get to be a hunter anymore, I kind of just wish I had you guys in my life, and not just sometimes!”

Kite and Ging paled, their own consciences truly settling with them.

“I’m sorry,” Kite said first. He didn’t lower his gaze, deciding to respect Gon’s anger and sorrow.

“…I’m not going to apologize for how I live my life,” Ging started. Kite turned towards him suddenly, hair starting to float, his aura flaring.

Killua couldn’t help but think that Kite was much more level-headed when he wasn’t around Ging… But also learning that Gon wasn’t actually related to him was somewhat devastating for him. Things were definitely different from when Kite regaled them with stories of Ging from his younger years.

“I’m just not! Alright?! I’m sorry for abandoning you. My life is too dangerous. But I would have been a shitty dad, alright? I would have gotten you killed or just plain resented you for making me miss out on stuff. I wanted to have you, I did… I just… Had no idea what a baby would be like. You were a good kid… You never cried, you barely fussed… But I didn’t wanna go through the next twelve years worrying about you.”

Kite sighed. Selfish to the core, but… 

“I forgive you,” Gon said instantly. Ging looked up at him with sort of a dazed look.

“You don’t have to,” Killua said with a frown. “I know you do, but he hardly deserves it. One of the best nen users in the world and you couldn’t figure out how to protect a baby without abandoning it?! He could have died in the woods that day, you know! The day Kite saved him, by random accident!”

“Mm, I thought I had found Ging suppressing his aura when I found you, Gon. There was some signature hitting my aura then that seemed familiar,” Kite said, gazing up for a moment as he recalled.

“That’s besides the point! You arrived on Whale Island totally randomly. If you’d been there early or late, he could have died!” KIllua was getting worked up for real now.

“But I didn’t,” Gon said in defence. “It worked out.”

Killua groaned, deflating against his own legs. 

Gon looked back up at them, and then between them. “So… What’s this mean for me?”

Ging shrugged and looked at Kite. Kite just glanced at Ging before speaking. “You can stay here whenever you like. If there’s anywhere you wish to go where you might need protection, we can accompany you.”

Well that was definitely gonna cramp his style. Ging groused as he pulled off his hat, making the immediate vicinity smell like hat. “I can do better. I can get you your nen back.”

“I can’t believe the lengths you would go to weasel out of being a parent, Ging,” Kite grumbled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aw shit there it was!!! HMU on discord if you wanna talk about Kite I'm Iguana Paws#5748 I never tire.


End file.
